'Good for her.'
'I wish I could have seen their final performance, but that was the day we drove to Tampa. Amy was one of my favorites in Chicago. Bubbly girl, really sweet.'
'I remember her.'
Hilary had coached Amy Leigh in dance for four years while she taught in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park. Amy didn't have natural grace but compensated for it with practice and enthusiasm. They'd become friends. Hilary's last name had been Semper, not Bradley, until Amy's senior year, and Amy had been among the students who were most excited when Hilary had announced that she was getting married.
'I called Amy's room to congratulate her,' Hilary said, 'but the Green Bay bus left early. I missed her.'
'You can post on her wall on Facebook when we get back,' Mark said.
'Yeah.' Hilary yawned and worked the crick out of her neck by stretching her arms. 'I hope I can sleep on the plane. I'm still really tired. You must be, too.'
'Why do you say that?'
'You didn't sleep well, did you? I woke up at one point and you weren't in bed.'
'Oh,' Mark said. 'No, you're right, I couldn't sleep. Sorry, I was obsessing about the job again. I know you think I should just let it go.'
'I never said that. I just don't want it destroying our lives, OK? Look, we'll get home, and you can focus on something else. You can paint.'
'I'm not going to make any money that way.'
'Who knows? That gallery in Ephraim talked about selling your stuff. Anything will help right now.' She frowned when she saw Mark's face. He thought she was chastising him. She tried to make it better, but she only made it worse. 'Or you could do golf lessons this summer. A lot of women are looking for a sexy pro to help them stop shanking. A lot of men, too.'
'We've talked about this.'
'I know, I know. I'm just saying.'
She let the subject drop. On some issues Mark was stubborn, and you couldn't get him to change his mind. Golf was a big one. He'd spent several years in his twenties on the pro circuit, working his way up the ladder and into the money, until a shoulder injury ended his career. As an ex-pro, he could have made a decent living giving lessons or working in the business, but Mark had an all-or-nothing attitude. If he couldn't be competitive as a player, he didn't want to be part of the game. She'd never been able to help him past it.
Still, she couldn't complain. When he gave up golf, Mark had gone in a new direction and taken up teaching. That was how they'd met, when he was a substitute teacher in the Highland Park system. If he'd never been injured, he would have been on the Golf Channel, and she would probably still be single. So maybe it was fate. On the other hand, she knew it made the current situation even worse for Mark, because it meant that a second career had been stripped away from him in circumstances beyond his control.
'So what did you do?' she asked.
'What do you mean?'
'When you couldn't sleep. Where did you go?'
Mark hesitated. 'I took a walk.'
'On the beach?'
'Yes.'
'That must have been great. It was a beautiful night.'
'It was,' he said.
'How long were you gone?'
'I don't know. An hour maybe.'
Hilary pushed her chair back and stood up. 'I'm going to get some more orange juice. You want anything?'
Mark shook his head. He'd picked at his food but left most of it on his plate. It made her feel guilty eating everything she'd taken. If she'd been alone, she probably would have treated herself to another scoop of scrambled eggs, but instead she wandered over to the buffet and poured a second glass of juice over ice.
She noticed the cluster of police on the beach again. The handful of patrons in the cafe watched them curiously. Several guests had stood up and were shielding their eyes to get a better view of the activity near the water. A white-uniformed waiter passed Hilary with a fresh tray of cut fruit, and she smiled at him.
'Do you know what's going on?' she asked.
The waiter shrugged as he positioned the fruit on the buffet. 'Somebody told me they found a body out there.'
'A body? What happened?'
'Don't know. That's all I heard. Somebody died.'
'Do you know who it was?'
'A hotel guest, I think.'
'Here? At this hotel?'
'I guess so.'
He slid the empty tray under his arm and left without answering more questions. Hilary looked around the patio for someone she knew, but she didn't recognize anyone among the morning guests. She was concerned, because she and Mark had traveled to Florida this week specifically to watch the dance competition, which included several of her former students from Chicago. She had good friends among the girls and the coaches, and she hoped they were safe.
Hilary brought her juice back to the table. Mark saw the anxiety in her face.
'What's wrong?' he asked.
'Those are police out on the beach. The waiter says they found a hotel guest dead out there.'
Mark reacted immediately. 'Dead? Who was it?'
'I don't know.' She saw his eyes dart to the water, and she asked, 'Did you see anything last night?'
'What, like a body? Of course not.'
'Well, I wonder if you should talk to someone,' she said.
'And tell them what? I didn't see anything.'
Hilary shrugged. She saw the glass doors open on the other side of the patio, and she knew the woman who emerged from the hotel lobby. It was Jane Chapman, the mother of one of the dancers from Chicago. She waved at Jane, who made a beeline for their table. Her face was distraught.
'Hilary, it's terrible, did you hear?' Jane asked breathlessly. 'I can't believe it.'
'I heard that somebody from the hotel died. Do you know who it was?'
Jane nodded. 'A teenage girl. She was murdered.'
'One of the dancers?'
'I don't think so. I heard she's from your area, though. Door County.'
'A coach told me the dead girl's name was Glory Fischer.'
Hilary's breath left her chest. She felt dizzy. She heard Jane asking if she was OK, but the woman's voice was at the end of a long tunnel, muffled and distant. Hilary tried to speak and couldn't. She knew. Somehow she knew, without looking at Mark, without saying a word, that this event was a tornado that would suck in her and her husband. Her head swiveled slowly so that she could stare at him. She didn't want to see the truth, but their eyes met, and his expression confirmed all her fears. She saw emotions in his face she'd never seen in him before. Panic. Terror. Guilt.
Mark, what did you do? What happened last night?
She hated it that her first thought had nothing to do with trusting him. She hated it that her first thought had nothing to do with protecting him. It didn't matter that she would never believe for a moment that Mark Bradley could ever harm another human being. It didn't matter that she had faith in his willingness to stare at temptation and walk away from it. Her first thought had nothing to do with his innocence.
Instead, she stared at the man she loved, and all she could think was:
